


but fill the void with definition

by blackkat



Series: Marvel Drabbles [7]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Discussion of Previous Deaths, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Innuendo, Mentioned Character Death, Resurrection, discussed in a humorous way, maybe Clint/Carol/Marc if you squint, vaguely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:10:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21670873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: “Hey!” Clint says suddenly and loudly. “I think I figured out what we all have in common!”“We make the worst Avengers team in the history of ever?” Carol mutters, then waves a hand at Marc where he’s seated at the lone table across from her, both of them as far away from the vaguely rowdy and more than slightly tipsy crowd as they can get. “No offense.”
Relationships: Marc Spector & Carol Danvers & Clint Barton
Series: Marvel Drabbles [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1422472
Comments: 14
Kudos: 438





	but fill the void with definition

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt: Moon knight and other super hero discuss dying but for everyone else it's a traumatic event that changed a lot of their view of life and Marc's downing his thirteenth cup of coffee thinking about how he dies almost monthly at this point.

“Hey!” Clint says suddenly and loudly. “I think I figured out what we all have in common!”

“We make the worst Avengers team in the history of ever?” Carol mutters, then waves a hand at Marc where he’s seated at the lone table across from her, both of them as far away from the vaguely rowdy and more than slightly tipsy crowd as they can get. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Marc says, and frowns at his cards. Glances up, holding Carol’s gimlet stare, and draws a card, slapping it facedown on the discard pile between them. “Nine.”

“That mask is cheating,” Carol complains. “ _I'm_ not wearing a mask. And _bullshit_.”

Grumbling, Marc hauls his mask off, dropping it on the table beside him, and flips over his last card. It’s a nine, and Carol mutters a curse as she picks up the discards.

“I do technically have a secret identity,” Marc complains.

“Ha,” Carol says, apparently her opinion on that, and slaps a card down. “Ace.”

Probably true, so Marc doesn’t bother to call her on it. Drops his own card, and says, “Two.”

“Aren’t you two even _slightly_ curious what it is?” Clint asks, leveling an arrow at them. “Come on, I bet I know why we were all yanked up here!”

“Enlighten us, then,” Carol says, unimpressed, and drops another card. “Three.”

“Bullshit,” Marc tells her, and she smirks, flipping the card over to show that it is indeed a three. With a huff, Marc scrapes up the discards and drops an ace. “Ace.”

“ _All of us_ ,” Clint says over the top of them, “have died before!”

There's a pause as the others eye each other. Marc just rolls his eyes and refills his coffee cup from the pot sitting at his elbow. When he raises it at Carol, she pushes her own cup closer so he can top it off.

“Well,” Bucky Barnes says, still clutching his glass of something suspiciously pink and fruity-looking like he’s going to punch whoever gets too close to it. “That’s not exactly a revelation, Barton.”

“It’s not like it’s uncommon, either,” Hank Pym mutters, where he’s slowly sinking deeper into the couch cushions. “Death’s only permanent, like, sixty-eight point three four seven percent of the time.”

“The fact that you can calculate that to three decimal points means you haven’t had _nearly_ enough to drink,” Pietro tells him, and hands him another bottle of beer.

“It still sucks, every time,” the Scarlet Spider mutters, tucked away in the far corner of the couch across from Bucky. He was a lot tenser three drinks ago, but the mention of dying makes him get a little stiffer, twisting his glass around in his fingers.

This is not actually a conversation Marc wants to have. He ducks his head, dropping another card, and says, “Three.”

Carol isn't paying attention, though. Her eyes are on Clint, a little dark, and she says quietly, “Clint, that’s not—how about any other similarity, okay?”

Clint snorts. “What, you think our fondness for spandex got us dropped into an old farmhouse spinning through some weird dimension like we’re about to crash-land in Oz?” he asks. “Face it. We all died, we all came back, and we’re all fucked up over it. That’s why whatever grabbed us picked _us_.”

Marc very, very definitely doesn’t mention that time he fell into an old water tower chasing a robber and died when they landed, and Khonshu resurrected him out of sheer exasperation and left Luke Cage and Iron Fist to fish him out. That was…last month? No, the month before. The thing with Mr. Knight in Las Vegas was last month. He died then, too. Khonshu was less pissy about that time, since he got demon hearts in return.

Everyone else is looking so solemn and reserved, though. It’s probably a bad time to mention any of that.

“I went insane from it,” Scarlet Spider says morosely. “Twenty-seven resurrections.”

Leaning over the back of the couch, Laura pats him on the shoulder a little awkwardly. “At least the twenty-eighth was better?” she says.

“It never really gets better,” Simon Williams says, quiet. He drains his glass and raises it, and says, “To starting over.”

Marc did start over. Once. Then it got a little boring, trying to do that every time, and Moon Knight worked, so there wasn’t really any need to.

“Hey,” Carol says, and her foot taps his ankle under the table. When Marc glances up, she’s watching him with concern. “Are you okay, Moony?”

Everyone turns to look at him, and it takes Marc a lot of effort not to sink lower in his seat. “Fine,” he says brusquely. “It’s your turn.”

“Hey,” Clint says, like it’s supposed to be an amiable elbow to the ribs. “Dying sucks, man. We all get it. But you don’t have to play the strong, silent card here. I met Khonshu, you know? I get how terrifying he is.”

Last week Marc woke up to Khonshu hissing about not having enough hearts, and it was _exactly_ like that one time he and Marlene owned a cat and it woke them up every morning at three screeching for food. He’s terrifying, sometimes, but more often Marc would just call him an asshole.

“Wait, I thought the god thing was a hallucination,” Scarlet Spider says, confused. “Pet—uh, Spider-Man said it was a hallucination and you were crazy!”

“Spider-Man is a dick,” Marc mutters. “But yeah, I'm crazy too. Khonshu likes me that way.”

There's a moment of baffled silence from all corners, and then Clint says, “Ah, man, you had to make it weird.” He shoves up off the floor, coming to slump against the wall beside their table, and Carol wrinkles her nose at him. With an apologetic huff, he ducks around to the other side, next to Marc, and says, “No, seriously, you good, Moony? I know there's no moon here and shit.”

“My brain is a link to Khonshu's dimension,” Marc says flatly. “I'm a walking conduit for him. The moon is here because he’s here.”

Clint's face screws up as he tries to process that.

With an amused snort, Carol sets down another card. “Four. Okay, birdbrain, if we’re all here because we’ve died, where’s everyone else? I _know_ we’re not the only ones.”

“My sister, for example,” Pietro says, pointedly, shoving Scarlet Spider over to take a seat beside him. “And Strange.”

“Too powerful,” Clint says, waving a hand. “They’d just zap us out of here, right? ‘S probably why Nightcrawler isn't here, either.”

“Figures,” Marc mutters. “Five.”

Carol studies his face narrowly, but lets the move pass unremarked. “Six. I hate it when the bad guys are clever.”

“Or at least not outright idiots,” Marc agrees. He’s pretty sure that was a bluff, but not enough to call her on it. “Seven.”

“Eight.” Carol sighs and takes a sip of her coffee. “I did hate it,” she says abruptly. “Dying.”

“You and me both,” Clint says wryly.

They're probably waiting for Marc to agree. He doesn’t, keeping his eyes on his cards, and almost has time to think he’s gotten away without answering when Carol kicks him lightly in the ankle again.

“You died,” she says, and it’s not harsh. Even, almost, but a little sad, and Marc freezes like a hunted thing. “When?”

“When Khonshu picked me as his knight,” Marc says, and when he glances up there are _far_ too many people looking at him. It takes effort not to hunch his shoulders. “And…other times.”

Clint is frowning. “ _Other_ times?” he repeats.

“Khonshu's short on worshipers who know how to throw a punch,” Marc says flatly, though it’s probably more that Khonshu doesn’t exactly have his pick of mentally ill former mercenaries with Dissociative Identity Disorder and very shaky morals, so he didn’t want to have to pick another knight. “So he brings me back.”

“Wait,” Carol says, eyeing him suspiciously. “Your most _recent_ death, when was that?”

“Uh…a Maggia hitman?” Marc frowns, trying to remember. “Rockefeller Center, on the ice rink.”

“Oh, man, I just took my girlfriend skating there!” Simon protests. “You _died_?”

Marc shrugs. “His name was Ice. I guess he liked the poetry.”

“Nothing worse than poetic assholes who like to play up their aesthetic,” Clint laments. He pauses, frowning, and then asks, “So Khonshu just…brings you back?”

“God of healing,” Marc reminds him. “And fucking _asshole_. Nine.”

“Who you still pray to,” Carol says, and drops a card. “Ten. Doesn’t that get…traumatic?”

“Jack.” Marc considers the question as he lays down his card, and says, “It’s boring, mostly. I could probably stay dead if I wanted, but…I get up.”

Carol lets out a wry breath, closing her eyes for a moment. “Oh,” she says. “And bullshit.”

With a scowl, Marc flips his card over to reveal the three, then scoops up the whole stack.

“Well,” Clint says, and claps him on the shoulder. “If you ever change your mind about not drinking, hit me up and I’ll mix something that will put you on the floor. It sounds like you could use it, dude.”

Marc bats his hand away. “I'm fine.”

“You're _insane_ ,” Clint counters.

“Yeah, well.” Marc leans back in his chair and drops a card on the table. “That’s nothing new. Ace.”

“Why are you starting out like this?” Carol protests. “Bullshit.”

Marc flips it over and smirks at her. “Aren’t you supposed to be good at reading people, Captain?”

“Oh, shut up.” Carol flicks a card at him, bouncing it off his forehead, but she’s smiling. “Thanks, Marc.”

“For what?” Marc asks, confused. He rubs the spot where it hit, frowning.

Carol casts a smile at Clint, who’s watching them both with something quiet and warm on his face, and says, “Perspective. Okay, I call a reverse. King.”

“Bullshit,” Marc tells her, and this time when she throws the card at him, he plucks it out of the air. It’s the king of spades, and he huffs. “Oh, screw you.”

“Both of you are so bad at this game,” Clint says in awe. “How are you bad at _bullshit_? This is amazing and terrible and you're making me want to cry.”

“You're welcome to show us how it’s done, if you think can handle it,” Carol offers sweetly.

Clint cracks his knuckles and grabs a chair. “Okay, ladies, move over, you're about to see how the _real_ master of bullshit does things around here.”

“Master of bullshit?” Carol echoes, raising a brow. She trades glances with Marc, clearly trying not to grin. Marc doesn’t have nearly the restraint. He laughs, leaning back in his chair, and in retaliation Clint flips him off and steals his coffee.

“Come on, come on, give the me the cards,” he says. “Unless one of you is a world-famous card shuffler. Hurry it up, I want to clean you both out before whatever eldritch evil dumped us here decides to go for a big reveal.”

“Isn't cleaning us out the opposite of the point of bullshit?” Marc asks, but he passes over his cards and watches Clint's quick hands split the deck.

“Watch and learn, ladies,” Clint says cheerfully, and Marc and Carol trade looks across the table.

“Keep that up and we’re going to show you exactly why that’s not an insult,” Carol says dryly. “To _either_ of us.”

Clint pauses, squinting at her, then at Marc, who silently raises a brow at him. “Was that a sex joke?” he asks. “I kind of feel like that was a sex joke.”

Carol rolls her eyes and shoves her cup of coffee at Marc. “Just cut the cards already, Hawkeye.”

Marc takes the cup, draining the rest of it, and refills it. It’s going to be a long night.

He’s smiling a little, though, and when Carol looks up at him, she is, too.

“If you keep playing footsie with us,” he tells Clint, “we’re going to _make_ it a sex thing. Feet to yourself.”

“Ha, you wish,” Clint says, and splits the cards in a flashy arc. “I have a strict policy about dating people with mohawks. _Or_ people who wear bags on their heads.”

“What about _and_?” Carol asks, grinning, and Marc snorts.

“I regret starting this,” Clint laments. “Okay, time for the bullshit master to prove himself. Ace.”

“Bullshit,” Marc and Carol chorus, and Clint groans and throws the ace at them. It bounces off Marc's nose to clip Carol in the temple, but they’re too busy laughing to dodge.


End file.
